Five questions

The Human Insistant says I have to announce that October 9 is officially Leif Erikson Day in the U.S. (But not because of anything Leif Ericson actually did on October 9.) You can probably read more about it on his blog. (H.A.'s blog, not Leif Erikson's.)

If for some strange reason you want a Viking name for the day, try here. I am Jörund the Clumsy. Hmmpf. I don't have thumbs, you know! Gremlin is Þóra the Comedy Sidekick. (Pronounced like Thora.) That doesn't sound like a Viking name to me.

The Human Assistant cheated and tried different things. The one I like best is Eirík the Berserker (for mr_ed).

I wonder if Vikings had dogs. They must have. Don't you think? But you never hear about them. Something else dog related ... October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month. The ASPCA is having a photo contest you can check out.

There are interviews going around! After Sky was interviewed on his blog, he kindly agreed to ask me five questions:

Sky:  1. You recently told us about strange pets that people keep. If you have any pet, what would it be and why?

Tucker:  Oh, that's a hard question! I do like stuffed toys! But I don't think a little furry pet would be as good. I'm sure H.A. would take it away forever after I chewed on it a while. Maybe a monkey that would find the dog food and treats and bring them to me. But it better not try to ride on my back!

Sky:  2. You've mentioned a lot of countries in your blog, i.e. China, Brazil, Egypt, Australia, and Russia to name a few. Have you ever traveled? If so, where and if not, where would you like to go?

Tucker:  I've had six different homes. But I've never traveled otherwise. It would be interesting to see where Siberian Huskies came from! Too bad people don't agree on where that was. Most of all I would like to visit Turkey to see if it tastes as good there as it does here!

Sky:  3. Your profile tells us that 4 poster dogs have lived with you at Mr. Ed's. Which one was yor favorite?

Tucker:  Fooey. Jägermeister, Mystique, Poo-Poo, and Sally. Plus his daughter's dog Zot. They were all nuisances! You can see them on Mystique's dogster page.   [Links to their own dogster pages, and to Gremlin's, added Oct. 14  -- mr_ed]   Well, Poo-Poo the Miniature Poodle mix was okay. She was very quiet and didn't bother me. Maybe Poo-Poo is as old as Gremlin, thirteen years.

She was a stray and got stuck in a crummy shelter all filthy and everything. It took her a while to liven up. Actually she was kinda cute when she started dancing on her hind legs for treats! Just when her personality started to come through, she got adopted to a good home. Good that it wasn't my home so she couldn't bug me!

Sky:  4. If you were human what profession would you choose?

Tucker:  I would be a taste tester in a meat factory! Somebody has to make sure those cans of meat are okay! I'll bet there are lots of people who want those jobs, though. So I could also be a ride checker to make sure that cars ride okay after they're built or fixed.

Sky:  5. With all the grapes in the garden, we can't help but wonder if H. A. will make wine from them. If he does and serves it with cheese--Which will you beg for? Wine or Cheese?

Tucker:  Sometimes H.A. tells Gremlin not to wine. And I like water okay. So it would be cheese for me!

Thank you Sky! If you hadn't asked, I wouldn't have thought of these things. Maybe somedoggy would like me to interview them. There are rules. Many of us have trouble with rules. But it's a game! Even Sibe games have rules. And I didn't make them up:

• 1. If you are interested in being interviewed, leave me a comment saying, 'interview me.'
• 2. I will respond by posting five questions for you. I get to pick the questions.
• 3. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions.
• 4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview somedoggy else in the same post.
• 5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

It sounds easier than it is! Try it!

Har. Har. ::scowl::

Tucker:  Amber told me that Sitka didn't say I looked like a beagle. She said that she said that I looked regal. I asked the Human Assistant why he told me that, and he said he didn't have his glasses on at the time.  ::snort::

So I asked him what regal meant. He said that reagles are big birds. The littlest reagles are four feet across! I'm just barely that long when I hold my tail straight out!

But this kind doesn't live in America. He said the reagles we have are seven feet to nine feet across!!! Their babies are called reaglets. H.A. said their nests are called rearies and can be really really huge!

When the Human Assistant left, Gremlin laughed at me. ::scowl:: She said he was pulling one of my legs, which I don't like. She said that Sitka wouldn't compare me to a bird. Gremlin doesn't know what reagles are. But she said that "even" Siberian Huskies, who think that cats and small dogs are prey, know the difference between birds and dogs.

Grrr.  Gremlin is right. But she laughed at me! And I think she insulted Sibes, too. I thanked her and said I'd put her picture in my blog. So here we are looking at the bowl of grapes I put in the last post: This is her best side.  ::Big Husky Grin::

As for the Human "Assistant" ... he is not allowed to write in my blog anymore. No China, no birthdays, no football stuff. (He will still type for me, of course.) I set up a separate blog for him. I am still the boss of it. Heh heh. He wanted to make one for himself. But I got the internet address he wanted. So he'll use the one I created.

He tried to tell me that after writing his blog and typing mine he might not have time to feed dogs twice a day. I reminded him that he has a couple of bites that still aren't healed up completely. Hmmph.

We'll see what happens!

Also Amber said she thinks I have a dash on my tail. H.A. saw that too. He wanted to look closer. He wanted to pull my tail, which I don't like! I just know he did! I said no thank you and kept facing him.

Last night I was on the bed, lying on my side. He brought in a grooming rake and wanted to brush my tail and look for the dash. I kept lying on my side. He got some fur in his bed, but that's all. I'll look through other pictures of me and see if there's a better view.

I'll tell H.A. that we're supposed to get treats based on whether we have a dot or a dash. Since I might have a dash, dashes get more treats!

We'll see what happens!

Picture magic

Tucker:  Here are more pictures from the garden. They are 10 days newer than the first set. But they are still two weeks old. The Human Assistant doesn't want to believe that two weeks have gone by. But I checked.


The first picture is Mystique peeking out from the doggie den in the bushes. She is standing up but hard to see. The first piece of picture magic is to make her easier to see. Just click on the picture and it gets bigger!

You can see Mystique better and you can see little plums. (The plums are on the ground and in the bushes. Mystique is only on the ground.) H.A. says the plums are ornamental, which means they taste bad. And he knows.

The second picture is Mystique lying down in the doggie den. It's dark in there! Compared to out in the sunshine anyway. And the picture didn't come out very well. Another one where you couldn't see her.

But H.A. did picture magic on the computer. It makes the picture look brown, but you can see Mystique. First her doggie tags. Then her shiny eyes. Then her ears standing up. Such big ears for a little doggie!


There is no special magic in these two pictures. Except that I'm in them, of course!

This is another one from when H.A. took my "portrait." Sitka said I look like a beagle in that one. I didn't think so, but....  ::shrug::  In this one I'm keeping an eye or two on my apple.

And here I am looking to see what's so neat about the doggie den. (I still have my apple.) H.A. says about half of the eight doggies who have lived here in four years have used the den. I don't. I don't think Mystique did either. This is the only day I saw her in there.


Here is more picture magic. The bowl of grapes are one color in the sun. And another color in the shade! Also they look kinda big. They weren't that big. H.A. just got real close. He said he used a wide angel on the camera lens. I thought angels were for Christmas trees! And I've never seen a wide one.  ::shrug::  H.A. has seen more Christmas angels than I have.


I don't see anything magical about this picture. (It's a little confusing though. The only grapes are near the bottom-right corner.) Anyway, H.A. says it shows the fascinating drama of the garden.  ::snort::

The bushes with the black berry thingies (which taste icky, he says) are expanding to the south. That's to the right. The grape vines are moving to the north. Here they meet. The perennial clash of the bush and the vine. Can they both survive?

H.A. says there used to be raspberries there. I think they're all gone now. The berrythingies and the grapes must have crowded them out. "Война и мир в саду," says H.A. - War and Peace in the garden.

Around the house

mr_ed:  Before you start, I'd like to send out a couple of October 2nd "Happy Birthday"s.
Tucker:  ::snort::
mr_ed:  Best wishes to Nat Turner, Paul von Hindenburg, William Ramsay, Mahatma Gandhi, and Groucho Marx!
Tucker:  All right then.
mr_ed:  Also "Spanky" McFarland, Johnnie Cochran, Rex Reed, Avery Brooks, and Donna Karan.
Tucker:  Done?
mr_ed:  No, nobody named Dunn. But Annie Leibovitz, Sting, and Tiffany.
Tucker:  Isn't it time for treats?
mr_ed:  Ooh, yeah, I'm hungry. Be right back.
Tucker:  Here I am striking a pose. I don't know what got into me. Fortunately the rest of the picture is crummy. So the Human Assistant won't be showing it around.

There's a food bowl on a white bucket behind me. He put grapes in the bowl to take some kind of dopey picture. Then I came over. He wanted a picture of me poking my nose in it like other Sibes do when a package comes for them.

But it had no treats in it! Why would I stick my nose in there? Instead I lay down in the shade with my apple.

You can't see the apple very well. But it was a good one. These days I almost always have an apple with me. H.A. picked up most of them. He said the neighbors would complain about our yard smelling like vinegar. But there are still lots of apples. And more falling down every day!

When H.A. walks by me he always says "Oh, you have a nice apple there!" But when Gremlin comes near I have to growl and bark at her to keep her away from it. Then a couple of days ago H.A. said, "That's a really nice apple!" And he took it!

And he washed it and ate it! I was so shocked! Gremlin and I stood in the kitchen and watched him cut out the bad parts and start to eat it. He gave in and gave us little pieces of it.

Later, he was lying down and I took a book outside and chewed it apart. He was pretty annoyed when he found it! He said, "Why'd you do that? There are lots of apples for you!" Well, there are lots of books for him, too.

He thinks he's such an alpha. I'm pretty sure that he took another apple from me the next day. After he walked by I looked around for it. I stood up. It didn't roll under me. I looked some more, right where I was pretty sure that it was. But no apple. Hmmmph.

A couple of times I've been relaxing in the garage with an apple. And he picks it up and rolls it out into the yard. I go get it and bring it back, but he's in the way. I can't get back in the garage so I drop the apple.

He picks it up again and rolls it away again. This happens about three times and then I wander off.

I don't know why he's trying to confuse me and annoy me. When he rolls the apple away he calls it a fetch. I thought maybe a moving apple was a fetch. I don't know. I've only been here 11 months.

But no. When an apple falls out of the tree he doesn't call it a fetch. When he rolls one and I chase it down he says, "Good boy!" But he always says I'm a good boy. So I don't know what's going on with him.

Now that the weather is cooler I'm spending more nighttime in the garage. H.A. would like dogs in bed with him, but oh well. Now that puppy is gone I nap on the bed a little in the daytime. Just to make sure that I know when he gets dressed to leave the house.

But nighttime in the garage. I'm in Gremlin's way just as much there as in the kitchen, so it's okay. She looks out the door and sees me and then pees in the living room. H.A. doesn't like that very much.

Oh well. We all have our burdens to bear.

Winter is coming!

Tucker:  The Human Assistant said it was cold Sunday. I didn't think so. But he said there were 6 heating degree days all on that one day. (I don't know what that means!) He also said the average temperature was only 59° F. Actually, first he said something about the integral of temperature deficit as a function of blah blah blah.

Who listens to humans? He also said winter comes after we harvest the crops.  WE?


Here I am under the apple tree. You can click on the pictures to see them bigger. The H.A. says there were no apples last year. Lots and lots of pretty blossoms but no apples. I don't know. I got here later in the year. He also says he thinks they're smaller this year than before. And more of them are falling off the tree. But that's okay by us dogs. While we harvest them.

One day puppy stood up and picked an apple off the tree. H.A. says limbs shouldn't hang down that low. The tree needs to be pruned. He said that means that dried plums have to be smeared on it.

We have a plum tree. But the plums are too small and yucky to eat. They're just for looking at. And maybe for birds to eat, I don't know. But I know he's not drying any of them out and smearing them on the apple tree. Maybe he was pulling on my leg, which I don't like.


We also have grapes. H.A. says the vines are like Very. Slow. Kudzu. They climbed over the raspberry branches. Up the telephone pole's leash. He says we'll have to hack them down a few feet. But they're already too tall for him to reach.

Click on the right picture and look closely. We have a small crop of puppytail. I hope that doesn't come back next year!

These sunflowers are by the house. I don't know why they're not as tall as the ones down by the grapes. The human says when he lived here 40 years ago there weren't any sunflowers here. But his mom bought birdseed at the store and there were sunflower seeds in it.

She would set it out in pie pans on the patio. Which is just flat stones set in the ground. He says the sunflowers had taken over the patio when he came back four years ago. But they weren't all over the yard like this summer.

Sunflowers are escape artists. They jumped the fence and are in the side yards next to the house now. Maybe next year the whole back yard and side yards will be sunflowers! Except under the apple tree, of course.

Bees love the sunflowers. They had quit work for the day when H.A. took these pictures. Jaeger would snap at flies. Good thing he didn't snap at bees!

The sunflowers are starting to be done now. The bees are almost done harvesting. Most of the apples are out of the tree. I guess the birds ate all the plums. The crops are almost harvested. Winter should be here soon!